The Flower of Death
by BloodofDurin
Summary: A short insight into Severus Snape's last visit to the graveyard in Godric's Hollow.


He did not have long. The Dark Lord had made his move and Hogwarts was falling fast. It was time to say his last goodbye.

The snow made the sound seem muffled and close, made the air appear to hang in the utter silence around him, and it seemed fitting that it should be so bleak and cold as he made his final visit to Godrics Hollow. The church stood black and uninviting to his left as he wound his way through the aged headstones, treading a path he had memorised over the long, unbearable years he had endured in her absence. Back and back and back, further to the left, beneath the long dead willow tree that wept each day so he didn't have to, stood the final resting place of the only friend he'd ever had. Lily Evans.

There were no footprints here, no one had been to her grave in the past day or so, and for that he was glad. He felt that this was _his _place, fitting as it was. He had never belonged amongst the living. Not even when she was alive.

He knelt when his eyes found her name in the dim light, and slowly he lent forward so that his forehead touched the etched stone. This ritual he repeated every time he came, closing his eyes and allowing the rough texture to bite into the skin just above his eyes. Grief, his old friend, enveloped him as his tears melted the snow at his feet.

'Lily,' he whispered, in the vain hope that she would hear him and whisper back. She had never replied in eighteen years, not that he really expected her to, yet his heart had been beating madly ever since he landed in the road just outside the churchyard. Its rhythm was strong, and frantic, and desperate to continue despite what he knew he must do. He was about to die, and he had to speak to her one last time.

'I'm going now,' he said, though his voice did not even sound like his own. It sounded dead already, defeated and broken. 'I just wanted to say goodbye.'

The wind whipped his robes around him, hissing through the trees above and hitting his skin with a stinging bite, but he hardly noticed. He took the pressed flower from his robes pocket, the same flower he had been meaning to lay on her grave since her death, and finally set it down beneath her name.

'I failed you, Lily. It's all my fault. Everything.'

His finger traced the deep cut in the rock where the 'L' was carved, and his eyes followed its progress until he felt a hot burning sensation from his left arm. He sighed and blinked away the last of his tears.

'I hope your son will do what I could not,' He said standing up and ignoring the pain in his joints, as well as the terror at what he was about to do. Because in the end he knew, Lily was still beyond his reach. Death would bring her no closer. His soul was damned.

'Goodbye, Lily,' he said sadly, as his throat constricted and threatened to choke him. 'Forgive me.'

* * *

The late spring snow left the inhabitants of Godrics Hollow very confused, as well as a little worried. Such weather was unusual, especially as it only lasted for three days at most. The clouds had rolled across the blue sky overhead and unleashed its fury, something that the weatherman had never even thought possible so close to summer, and it had annoyed church-goers immensely when they found that their place of worship had been frozen shut.

When the snows finally began to thaw, Suzanne Trent of number 17, Godrics Hollow, was finally able to place a wreath against the tombstone of her late husband and wish him a happy birthday, belated though it was. She was just about to head back towards the church, glad to get out of that cold, when something peculiar suddenly caught her eye. She blinked, thinking she was seeing things in her old age, and opened her eyes to see the same thing that had made her stop.

Footprints in the snow.

Footprints that led in only one direction, and did not retreat back the way they had come. But that was impossible! Wasn't it? How could someone walk one way, and not return back? She decided then that she would have a look at the grave in which the footsteps came to a stop. If anything, it would provide a talking point at their next church meeting.

She moved slowly, her bones still old and easily affected by the snow that now lay a little less thickly on the ground, until she reached the place where the footsteps ended. Her face, which had been held in a curious expression, soon fell into a look of both shock…and sadness.

The tombstone was that of Lily and James Potter, and beneath the stone, laying directly under the young woman's name, was a single, dried up flower. Suzanne recognised it immediately, being a fervent botanist, as Asphodel. And the message the flower sent to the long deceased woman was enough to bring tears to her eyes.

Because Asphodel was a member of the Lily family, known as the flower of the dead. And in the language of flowers it meant only one thing.

_'My regret follows you to the grave.'_


End file.
